Dragon City

by James Axler

  Domi glared at the nearest Annunaki, a broad-shouldered female with pendulous breasts and a brown sheen to her scales, and she placed her knife to the figure’s throat. It would be the work of a single second to cut the thing’s throat, a move she could repeat two hundred or more times until every last one of the ghastly things was dead, stillborn before the personality download process could begin. Her hand trembled as she pressed her knife against the sleeping Annunaki’s cool flesh. But she had to be smart, do what Kane or Brigid or Lakesh would do. Killing the bodies would only postpone the birthing process. Whatever Enlil had done, he had found a way to fast track the growth of the Annunaki bodies by tampering with human DNA; killing these bodies was not enough, would merely cause Enlil to seek more victims for his twisted plan.

  Domi bit her lip, feeling a coolness come over her as the rage began to subside. She pulled the knife away from the still figure, letting it rest limply at her side. She had to be smart.

  In a moment, she engaged her Commtact. “Cerberus, this is Domi. Do you read me? Over.”

  She waited in the darkness for a response.

  * * *

  GRANT WAS KNEELING ON the floor of the corridor, batting aside the water as it came at his face where the liquid human form tried to drown him. The Sin Eater in his hand jerked as he drilled another burst of 9 mm slugs into the thing’s body, driving the pistol downward to force the shots to cut through the length of the creature. As he fired again, Grant heard a voice over the rush of water echoing through the corridor.

  “Cerber—is Domi. Do—ou read me? Over.”

  It was his Commtact, Grant realized, springing to life at Domi’s broadcast. The voice was broken up but distinct, and Grant engaged his Commtact without hesitation. “Domi? This is Grant. I can hear you. Do you read me?”

  The water creature in front of him slapped its mittenlike hand over Grant’s mouth, and he felt the wash of water running up his nose, making him see stars. Intentionally, Grant toppled backward, falling to the floor and away from the thing’s liquid hand.

  “Got some of th—Grant. Where are you?”

  “Close by,” Grant told Domi as her fractured message piped into his ear. “But kinda busy.” Even as he spoke, he was rolling through the shallow water away from the thrusting arms of the water thing. “Brewster’s been tracking your transponder, but the Commtact signals are being disrupted somehow.” He drew his blaster up, shoving the tip into the water thing’s face and pumping the trigger. Slick runnels of water charged from the back of the thing’s head along with the bullets, carving a path toward the far end of the corridor. “Looks like you’re inside Tiamat.”

  “Tiamat?” Domi was unable to disguise her surprise when she responded. “But—ought she exploded. —ver mind, we have bigger worries right n—”

  Grant spun backward as the water creature swished its leg up for a vicious head kick. The kick connected with his cheek, splattering it and again searching for his nostrils and mouth in a determined effort to drown him. “What worries?” Grant demanded. “What’s going on?”

  Static came back over the Commtact as Domi’s reply failed to come through clearly.

  Grant whipped his pistol up with little hope, blasting another clutch of 9 mm slugs deep into and through his attacker’s torso. Behind him, Rosalia and Kudo were engaged with their own foes, struggling to find some way to gain an advantage.

  “Please repeat, Domi,” Grant urged. “I didn’t catch that.”

  * * *

  DOMI’S DESPERATE WORDS echoed through the vast chamber of sleeping Annunaki shells. “Enlil’s using the ship to create a new pantheon of gods,” she shouted, willing the message to reach Grant. “He’s grafting Annunaki DNA to human bodies.

  “Do you hear me?”

  There was no response, and Domi cursed vehemently, wishing there was some way to communicate with Grant. As she searched the room, wondering what to do, an ugly voice echoed from behind her.

  “You’re smarter than most credit you, Domi.”

  Domi turned as Enlil stepped from the shadows of the staircase, batting Hassood aside with one powerful flick of his arm as he lunged toward her. He stopped in front of her, a cruel reptilian sneer appearing on his features. “For an apekin, that is.”

  Before the last word had left Enlil’s mouth, Domi pounced at him, leaping into the air. Enlil brought his arm up to bat her away as the albino girl slashed the knife at his face. Her blow missed his face, instead striking his upheld forearm with such force that it cut through his natural armor with a gush of blood.

  Then she was spinning away, landing on the floor and rolling over and over to slow her momentum. She was up again in a heartbeat, feet pounding against the hard floor as she leaped into the air once again. Enlil was ready for her this time, his right arm shooting forward and snatching Domi by her outstretched arm, swinging her out and away from him.

  Domi sailed across the chamber before slamming into a wall of cylinder frames, several of them containing the lifeless bodies of the adult Annunaki. She shook her head, trying to clear it as Enlil came charging toward her, leaping the little streams of water as he powered across the chamber, his scarlet cape billowing out behind him like a bloody mist.

  “Grant, listen to me,” Domi shouted, hoping their Commtacts were still linked. “Enlil’s regrown the Annunaki pantheon. Two hundred space gods, and he’s about to bring them to life.”

  Enlil kicked out as Domi tried to roll away, and his multiclawed foot clipped her across the chest, driving the air out of her in a strained gasp. Domi brought her knife down between the alien’s toes, ripping through the scales and driving it point-first into Enlil’s soft flesh.

  Enlil bellowed in reply, stepping away from Domi with the blade still wedged between his claws. Coughing as she took another breath, Domi pushed herself back, using the struts of one of the empty cylinders to drag herself to her feet. Before she could do more than that, she felt Enlil strike her on the back of the head. She fell forward, crashing face-first into the back wall of the empty cylinder. A trace of tiny lights sprang to life on the wall in front of her, and Domi saw the illumination from behind her as the cylinder’s amber bars came to life, locking her within its tubelike form.

  “And now,” Enlil railed, “you will finally become useful.”

  Domi turned in the cramped space, her mind screaming at her to get free. She was a child of the Outlands and as such she detested being caged in any manner, far more so than the folks who had grown up within the rooms and high walls of the villes. “Let me out,” she snapped, twisting her body to see what was occurring on the front side of the narrow container.

  Enlil ignored her pleas as he pulled the knife from his foot and tossed it aside, a spit of blood bubbling there. Then he picked up the fallen form of Hassood and placed the man’s unconscious body in another of the empty cylinders. With a flick of his palm controller, Enlil strode out of the main chamber and past the stairs, and Domi and Hassood followed within the cylinders, bobbing along the narrow canals of water that crisscrossed the room.

  Domi hammered against the edges of the cylinder as it journeyed along the stream toward the stairs. Though she couldn’t feel it directly, some kind of invisible field held her in place, solid like hardened air. “Let me out, you lousy snake-face,” Domi snarled.

  Now standing in front of his control console, Enlil turned to Domi and smiled. “Rejoice. Evolution has arrived,” he thundered.

  Domi watched helplessly as he depressed a lighted switch on the control board.

  Chapter 22

  The grimly illuminated shaft of the stairwell resounded with blasts as Kane depressed the Sin Eater’s trigger again and again, rapidly loosing bursts of bullets at the oncoming torrent of rocks. Behind him, Balam watched in amazement as the baseball-size stones seemed to peel from the
face of the walls and tumble into the air, throwing themselves at the Cerberus warrior with no sense of order or reason.

  “This was a mistake,” Kane scoffed. “We’ve triggered some kind of death trap, and it’s building its attack.”

  “Stoned to death,” Balam responded as another of the spherical rocks hurled itself at Kane’s head. “I imagine it’s a nasty way to die.”

  “Let’s not find out,” Kane said as he knocked the rock aside with a jab of his fist.

  In a moment they had turned back, stepping out into the corridor once more and slamming the stairwell door behind them. “That’ll contain them,” Kane said.

  “But it traps us here,” Balam observed.

  To Kane’s ears, Balam sounded maddeningly calm about the whole situation. He could afford to be, Kane realized—the rocks didn’t seem to be interested in attacking Balam of the First Folk.

  Kane scanned the corridor, his vision popping as it tried to adjust to the change in lighting. He clenched his teeth, feeling strangely disconnected from what he was seeing now, the process of sight no longer truly connected to his body.

  The corridor, like the rest of the old redoubt, had jagged struts of stone depending from the ceiling like stalactites now. The walls were rough, blisters of stone running unevenly along them with veins of magma churning through them to act as lamps. Kane led the way back toward the canteen, turning down another corridor, the floor plan of the ancient redoubt still familiar despite the cosmetic changes. As he walked, he heard something moving off to his right, that fabled point-man sense alerting him even before he became consciously aware of the danger. He turned, his free arm going up to protect Balam where the shorter creature walked behind him, his Sin Eater aiming at the noise even though he hadn’t identified it.

  There was another of the ball-like rocks there, charcoal dark and rolling across the wall in an uncanny way as if magnetically attached to the vertical surface. Without warning, the rock popped, leaping from the wall and hurling itself at Kane’s head.

  Kane snapped off a blast from his Sin Eater as he shouted the command to Balam. “Run!”

  Missing Kane by just two inches, the flying rock continued along its arc, smashing into the far wall with such force that it kicked up shards of broken stone from the surface.

  Kane was already moving, urging Balam to keep going as more of the strange rocks formed across the surface of the walls and began launching themselves at the intruders.

  The two of them ran back to the canteen, Balam waiting just inside the double doors, holding them open for Kane to enter. Ducking from another volley of the palm-size rocks, Kane slid through the doorway on his knees, instructing Balam to close the door as he entered.

  “The whole redoubt’s primed to kill us…me,” Kane said, correcting himself without thinking.

  “Then we need to get out of here,” Balam concluded, his reedy voice ringing in Kane’s ears as the ex-Magistrate’s eyes struggled to adjust once more, much to his frustration.

  “We’ll use the interphaser,” Kane said after a moment’s consideration.

  Balam bowed in supplication. “I know—it is how I came to be here. But how do you propose we access the chamber itself?”

  Kane scanned the walls, searching for more of the rock balls. They seemed to take time to generate, drawing from the surface of the walls, he had noticed. But it would not be long before they reappeared in this room, tossing themselves at him with savage purpose. He and Balam had to move quickly.

  Kane marched across the canteen until he was at the table where they had eaten, sending his Sin Eater back into its hidden housing beneath his right sleeve. With a swift flick of his arm, he cleared the remaining crockery and snatched the plastic tray up in his hands. “Come on,” he told Balam, pacing swiftly back to the double doors.

  A moment later they were out in the corridor, hurrying along at a jog, with Kane taking the lead. The curious, spherical stones rolled across the walls as Kane ran by, disengaging and tossing themselves at him with no warning. Kane sidestepped the first and ducked the second, paying no attention as the stones slapped against the floor.

  When the third budded from the ceiling and dropped at Kane’s head, the ex-Magistrate responded with lightning-fast reactions, bringing the fourteen-by-eight-inch rectangular tray up and using it like a shield, batting the rock aside. A fourth stone fired out of the wall to Kane’s right, slamming against the ex-Magistrate’s flank before he could move his makeshift shield into position. Kane grunted with the impact, grateful for the shadow suit he wore with its armored weave. Even so, he still felt that blow, and had to move swiftly to sidestep a fifth stone missile.

  “Keep going,” Kane said, indicating the door to the stairs.

  “What about you? Are you hurt?” Balam asked.

  “I’ll be fine,” Kane assured him. “You go on ahead of me. These rocks won’t attack you, so just make your way to the mat-trans chamber and I’ll follow as soon as I can.”

  Balam pushed against the heavy fire door leading to the stairwell, turning back once to give Kane a further piece of information. “You must stay close or our bond will lose coherence,” he explained. “You’ll lose your vision again.”

  Kane nodded. “How close?”

  “Perhaps fifteen feet,” Balam advised. “There will be no mistaking it,” he added ominously.

  Kane leaped back as another of the stones bulged from the wall and hurled itself at him. “Just go as fast as you can,” he instructed Balam. “I won’t be far behind.”

  As Balam pushed into the stairwell he wondered whether Kane was brave or merely crazy. He was reminded of that ancient human saying, of how fools rushed in where angels feared to tread. Kane had lost Brigid and his home, and was beginning to lose his eyesight. Could his grip on sanity be slipping, too? Balam dismissed the thought as he hurried down the staircase, lifting the skirts of his indigo robe just a little to allow his feet free movement. From above, he heard Kane battling with the bizarre rock guardians, knocking them away or stepping out of their line of fire as he made his own way down the internal stairs.

  One turn of the stairwell above, Kane eyed the walls warily, his vision popping with specks of light. Even through the controlled environment of the shadow suit, Kane could tell that the stairwell was icy cold; the temperature of the whole redoubt had dropped since it had been abandoned, its air control broken. The glowing veins in the walls, however, remained burning hot, and when Kane neared them it was like waving one’s fingers through the steam of a boiling kettle: a sudden, palpable heat that seemed to snatch at the skin.

  Kane continued down the staircase, his booted feet clattering against the uneven steps that, like the rest of the redoubt, had been overcome by rocky growths.

  As he turned the bend in the stairs at the midstory landing, another of the hard, round balls of rock disengaged from the wall and threw itself at him. Kane whipped the plastic meal tray up to block it, bracing himself for the impact as the hard chunk of stone slammed against his makeshift shield with a clatter. The rock dropped away, leaving a hairline crack in the surface of the tray. Kane sidestepped as another rock burst from the stone-clad wall, firing across the cramped stairwell toward him with the force of a cannonball. The ball-shaped rock whipped past Kane, missing his broad chest by an inch as it hurtled onward and into the floor.

  Kane watched for a moment as the rock rolled unevenly on the rough surface of the step, before it turned in place and careened back into the wall there. A moment later, like so much dough, it had been absorbed by the rocky surface of the wall itself, the bulge smoothing over as quickly as it had appeared.

  Kane moved onward, scurrying down the steps and making his way past the next story. Abruptly his vision seemed to lose color, the bright veins of magma turning to a white-streaked gray in an instant.

&n
bsp; I’m too far from Balam, he realized, redoubling his pace and taking the stairs two at a time. Up ahead, Kane heard the heavy fire door crash open as Balam made his exit. Beside his head, another of the budlike stones was forming into existence.

  * * *

  ON THE DISTANT PACIFIC COAST, Lakesh stood on the balcony outside the makeshift ops room, reading the results of the spectrographic study of Edwards’s skull. The man’s head was full of rock, running around the inside of his skull casing in thin, weblike strands. The rock had completely blocked his Commtact, which explained why Edwards had seemed out of touch during field missions in the weeks prior to the successful attack on Cerberus.

  “Dr. Singh?” A man’s voice came from behind him, firm but gentle, respectful of his solitude.

  Lakesh turned, saw one of the Tigers of Heaven standing there in his techno armor. The man stood with head slightly bowed, his hands clenched loosely together in front of him.

  “Yes…Ryochi?” Lakesh said, recalling the man’s name after a moment’s hesitation. Lakesh believed in good personnel relations and he had made an effort to learn the names of every one of Shizuka’s men who had come to support them.

  “There is something that you should see,” Ryochi said, “out by the East Gate.”

  Lakesh nodded, following the warrior without question as he made his way around the raised wooden balcony that surrounded the winter retreat.

  “He was spotted by my partner,” Ryochi explained, “and we brought it to Mistress Shizuka’s attention straight away.”

  Indeed, Shizuka was standing at the balcony on the other side of the house, a set of field glasses raised to her eyes as she scanned the easternmost edge of the vast property. At her name, she lowered the binoculars and turned to greet Lakesh.

  “It seems we have jackals at the door,” Shizuka stated ominously, handing the binoculars to Lakesh.

  Placing the lenses to his eyes, Lakesh located the east gate in a moment. Constructed of steel and painted red, the gate was made up of two dozen eight-foot-high metal struts, standing vertically like spears carried by an invisible army. The gate was more than a dozen feet wide and a sentry box stood beside it. Typically one of Shizuka’s warriors would man the gate, granting access only to those he deemed acceptable. The road beyond was largely unused, an out-of-the-way track off the beaten path. Only those seeking the mansion itself would come up it intentionally.